Discectomy with spinal anesthesia in the third trimester of pregnancy: A case report and literature review

Abstract

Low back pain is common during pregnancy, but symptomatic lumbar disc herniation in this period is particularly rare. We report a case of lumbar disc herniation in a 35-year-old woman at 32 weeks of pregnancy, who experienced persistent symptoms despite 6 weeks of rest and medication. Muscle strength in the right L5 nerve root declined to grade 4, and intravenous analgesia was ineffective. After thorough discussions with the patient and her family, a discectomy was performed under spinal anesthesia. Following surgery, the patient’s pain decreased, the Lasegue test became negative, and muscular strength returned to normal 2 weeks post-operation. At 39 weeks of gestation, a cesarean section was performed due to functional dystocia. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).